Ice and Wolf Complete
by emer1
Summary: In a world without monsters, morphing rifles and warrior-schools there are stock markets. About as grimy and eccentric, but with less gunpowder directly involved.


Thumps, hard heels hitting harder floor, repeatedly and without losing intensity. Far in the distance a phone goes off, barely finishing a signal before picked up and followed by boisterous greetings. The thuds increase, so does the dislike of the origin's neighbour who in between being connected leans back to peer around the poorly sound-proofed divider with a scorn.

"For all that is holy, Ruby, cut that off. I thought I was having a heart-attack and I can do quite well without one."

The red-headed source, deeply intent on not missing a single intonation from the speaker in the focus of the stream filling her centre monitor doesn't either hear or care. Another adorning pair of monitors, smaller and filled with contrasting coloured digits, fills the dedicated length of the table along with two set of phones.

The pace of taps quickens, and the girl fiddles with a dark-red lock as the boringly suited man shifts focus from one paper to another, renewing his breath in time with the headline updating in the bottom of the stream.

Ruby Rose, a full 23 summers young on this blue globe can not keep her feet from physically displaying her internal excitement, to the chagrin of not only her ginger right-hand neighbour Penny's chagrin, but most of her colleagues' in the vicinity. Unlike Penny, however, they have adopted to the often-occurring disturbance Ruby causes on almost daily basis by keep their audio's level a few notches higher than her heel taps, finger taps, humming and poorly aimed stress balls' bounces.

Penny, not able to increase the sound off the horrendous waiting music in her headset, moves her chair past the divider and nudges Ruby's shoulder. The triumphant shout and fist-pump barely a hair from Penny's face was not part of her plan however.

"Yes! So told them, of course they'd include it - suck it, Cardin. 'Thereto relevant articles', finally this mess of a union uses their collective greys." Still sporting a grin enough to reflect a day's worth of sun in Sahara, she notices the startled girl by her side.

Penny, while thinking she's getting that heart-attack at last, take some pleasure in the silence from underneath Ruby's table. One hand clasped at her chest, and other now shakily on Ruby's shoulder, takes the opportunity to converse with the red-headed menace before she decides to send her off to a premature wooden retirement.

"Whatever it was, I assume it was sensational, but please, sit. Still." With emphasises on the adjective and request, she tries what so many have (and failed) before her.

Very few, not only on this floor - but whole building, could match Ruby's record of deals and more importantly, profits, gathered under just a couple of years since acquiring her qualification from the FCA. Most of them now seated few floors above with their own desks and another couple of zeros added to their pay, couldn't claim the same educational history as well. As an underage graduate from Oxford (thanks to Marshall Scholarship), Ruby had entered what she called "the family trade" earlier than most. With an older sister, who remains across 'The Pond' along with their father also doing much the same thing, it had surprised no one that Ruby grew keen to the jingle of coins early in her life.

However, with a scholarship and boarding in not only another country but another continent, Ruby had to make do without the direct support of her family. Indirect, though, her more-luck-than-skill older sister Yang did not let that keep her from phoning in the middle of the night to harass/interview/'help'/chit-chat. Luckily, it had been a time since the last spontaneous call, perhaps due to Ruby's less than amicable replies the last time.

So, with a whole night's worth of sleep, a half pot of good coffee finished before noon and this just ending conference, Ruby thought herself top of her game. A small mar was the frown on her friend's face, and the most likely stern reprimands now uttered by the same. Luckily for Ruby, Penny did not know how well insulated her headphones were. Morphing her grin to a more fitting, yet hearty smile, Ruby waggled off her headphones with one hand while adjusting the audio-levels with her other.

"...and I had to go get it, because you didn't hear them! Just like...now, right? Did you hear anything I said, my friend?" A shadow of genuine despair flickered before being covered by tired resignation.

"Nope. Please forgive me?" The pure mirth poorly hidden in Ruby's face makes the otherwise hard task not to fall for her deer-eyes quite easy for Penny, who in return punches her shoulder. The then overplayed facade of emotional destruction and physical harm awards Ruby with another disapproving frown.

"Fine, I'm sorry. Did I sing or something?" Before Penny gets the chance to inform Ruby that she, luckily, had not blessed the floor with her far from inspiring singing skills Penny's call connects and she hurriedly leaves Ruby for her own set of monitors. She had been in queue for this overconfident sod in Frankfurt for over 10 minutes.

Not really too interested in Penny's dealing with the German contact, Ruby focuses again on her monitor where several incoming orders are listed for the now highly interesting bonds. Among them, listed third in a list sorted after offer's value, is one from an ID she knows quite well.

"So, Cardin, how about I help you move some of your Korean ETPs, hmm?" Hitting the speed-dial for his office, she presses a handset between her right shoulder and neck while with her left hand changes her left monitor's list of indexes to a split view between now open markets.

* * *

"...So, I actually got him to give me ten, per unit! Haha, oh wow, I almost felt bad 'till I checked the logs, and err..." With one long leg over her other, Ruby lay splayed over the couch in the dark corner of the "new place" Penny had dragged her to after they left the office. Like most in the trade, having stable working hours was almost a sad joke to Ruby, but she had made it part of her routine not to stay in the office after midnight. There were exceptions, of course.

It hadn't taken Penny long, as if guided by some abstract organic tracking system to not only find this new place, but also skip the queue. The queue Ruby now barely can remember hour and a half later. Some physicists would probably find it odd that such an over-active, hyper individual with amazing digestion as Ruby would get drunk this quick. However, that was a fact Penny had counted on and had after helping Ruby find a good place to enjoy herself, ran off somewhere.

So, here she sat. Suit jacket forgotten on a hanger by the entrance (without any valuables, of course), too long tie undone and white shirt wrinkled due to her position against the comfortable stuffing of this dark brown couch. Regaling one of her earliest victories to a polite, yet overly quiet girl, Ruby was glad that Penny had a thing for the more down-toned places instead of the half-rave-bunkers rest of those her age attended.

Ruby could have sworn she had seen a dance floor, yet either these drinks with a slice of lime neatly attached to the rim made her deaf, or she just couldn't work out sound well enough to be sure if there actually was someone dancing. Not that she had any intentions of dancing, god no, just that it was the thought now foremost on her mind.

With her mind set on the task of not missing the table next to her leg with the glass, she works her arm past her knee while wondering if she'd ask her couch-mate if she liked The Achieve Men or if this lime was too sour. With the glass safely on the edge of the table, and set on not bothering the girl with too personal questions, she turns to face her again.

"So, do you live far from here?"

* * *

Nursing a still steaming cup of coffee and other hand by her forehead, Ruby Rose could not claim to be enjoying her morning.

Working the palm of her hand to ward off the thundering pain in her skull, she carefully sips another mouthful with a badly covered groan.

She had no (clear) recollection of how she managed to get to work this morning, and wondered if her work integrity should be praised or condemned. With another groan, and with a flick of the hand no longer holding her head stable on her neck, she powers on her monitors. On the way back, the hand nudges the mouse and she hears the tell-tale whirr of the fans on her computer beneath the desk as it wakes up from sleep-mode.

A few rows down, probably the forex-guys going by the overly cheery noise they make as one shift leaves and the other takes their seats. It had become routine for the different time-zones to trump their partners when they meet, and this morning more than any before, Ruby found it excruciating.

Hiding her cursing under another groan, she hits her keyboard to pull up the log-in interface and purely on instinct she enters her details. With her privileges cleared with the server, the computer launches her automated softwares and streams along with a small window dedicated to music in the bottom left.

From her headset not far from the half-empty cup, she hears the pings of notifications and messages piling up. Glancing at the interface dealing with her group's transactions and statistics, she notices a few changes that clearly happened after she received the messages. Not only forex people had to adapt to the different markets open hours, but unlike how volatile a miss with currency can be, stocks and bonds had a larger time-margin so her group had two active during the night unlike forex' full staff.

With trained hand, she filters messages based on accounts (any connected to NYSE, NASDAQ, JPX and HKEx) and then sort them by time.

The most recent one, of course, came right at 08:01 from some schmuck at Detusche Börse, she really could not care enough to look to deep into it right now - not enough coffee has passed her dry lips.

"Salute." A misplaced pat on Ruby's shoulder (it hit more of her ear than the actual target) informs her that Penny has managed to show up as well.

"Hrmg." Ruby well-articulately responds and rotates her head to stare at Penny with all love and care she can muster at the moment. As fate has it, Penny doesn't notice Ruby nor how her foot hits her chair as she tries to sit down.

"Shi-...ffle, bloody chairs, way too early for mutiny." Shifting the massive and stylish dark aviators back on her nose, Penny finds herself finally seated, where she makes an elaborate gesture (probably unplanned) in waking her own computer.

Reluctantly, Ruby moves her focus from Penny's peering at the screen to her own. Another couple of messages has shown up, one even at a glance being a quite good offer. Forcing her eyes to blink, and a last rub along her forehead, Ruby hits the built-in button for service and then pulls on her headset.

"...where we now move to the press conference held by SDC's managing director over at Mayfair." Ruby manage to catch the last of a newscaster's introduction as she finishes off her coffee.

"So, Emerald, we've seen how over the last few years how SDC has worked hard to counter not only the surging market in China, but also the new political awareness of its customers - along with shareholders, what would you say we will be hearing this morning?"

"Well, James, I would not actually know what to guess. I myself haven't received any memos or hints that this was even going to take place, and the fiscal quarter is far from over, so unless young ms Schnee is going head-on with that report from last week about working conditions at their subsidiary companies, your guess is as good as mine."

The two BBC stars chattered on as the screen picturing a lavishly decorated hall with bobbing heads of reporters and staunch suits of security personnel occupied most of Ruby's main screen.

Ruby idly dreamed of how just the wallpaper in that room cost more than her whole flat when the camera focused on the just appearing cascade of white hair that followed the renowned majority stockholder of SDC.

Schnee DIG Corporation (Deutsche Ingenieur Gruppe) was founded in the early '50s in Switzerland. However, its roots in the DIG extends deep into the 19th century German Empire and a union of engineers (just as the name suggests). With a more practical mind than desirable at the time, the union moved to Switzerland before the first World War broke out and stayed there until the end of the second, where it entered the shattered remains of Europe to structure the rebuilding and later engagement with the ECSC. Along with the new financial climate overseas, it adapted into a Corporation with the Schnee family at the helm.

Where there were roads that needed to be built, they shipped asphalt and gear. Old mines forgotten or razed by war? Suddenly engineers and unscrupulous hiring policies flocked there. A taxation law proposed in a country west side of The Wall? Leagues of lobbyists and cancellation notices showed up. In short, they made an awful lot of money in ways people nowadays dug up and did not like.

What Ruby however thought of was not the ramblings and guesses of the people in the studio, or the buzzing of unhealthily intrigued press-folk reactions to the young woman now adjusting her long hair by the lectern. It was the girl herself and as the camera zoomed in on her carefully (not sparsely, mind you) made-up face, Ruby struggled on dealing with an enormous sense of _unsettlement_ deep in her brain. This unsettlement, as she really could not think of it like anything else, overpowered the headache and Ruby kept staring at her monitor while chewing her bottom lip.

Why is it that she somehow needs to remember something when she sees this girl? First she thought of her own assets, she knew she managed a few portfolios for the company that had stocks in SDC, but that wasn't it. While forcing the thought that it was actually what she should be thinking, as it was her job, she dug deeper into the dark depths of her subconscious.

Before the girl even starts talking, the monitor is displaying a feed of statistics relevant to her holdings, net worth and related stocks. Was it something about Beacon Edu (now down 0.5 due to speculation fuelled by this press conference) that Ruby's mind is trying to remember?

No, that was not it, even though her work-self tries to argue for that it is.

Oh, look at that, a net worth of £2.3bn, imagine what she could do with all tha-

Oh. Shit.

* * *

About 7 and a half hour earlier.

"So, do you live far from here?" Ruby pats her ego's back for being so smooth, like butter on warm cookies, straight from the ove-

"Excuse me?" The target of her charms, with clearly poorly aligned chakras and stars as she actually appears to frown at Ruby's question.

"You are. I know it isn't easy, I lived like by that Hogwarts station before, and still tell cabs to drive me there." Ruby snorts at her amusing memories of past acts of great importance.

Now the girl's even rolling her eyes, or it's just the light playing a trick on Ruby's own eyes. Oh, like Inception, what if the world is just what she observes, and thus can alter it by will? Furiously blinking and trying to have her eyes see the girl NOT looking at her in great distress and disturbance.

Then she's suddenly very warm, seems all the blinking did was make her lose her balance and hit the couch with her nose. Or maybe it's the couch that hit her nose, gravity's under her control now.

Gravity is clearly under her control, as she feel like she's floating while being lifted under her arms. Wonder if it's jets, and if she can accelerate? Adding the needed motor noises to adjust reality to the one where it's jet engines keeping her afloat, Ruby finds herself outdoors in a jiffy.

Not long after, Penny stumbles out with some help by security with years of experience in dealing with situations like this. She finds Ruby deep asleep, head-down on a park bench.

* * *

"Oh shit." Ruby voices her less than enthralling reaction to her newly awoken memories.

"What, you okay? Not going to throw up, are you?" Penny navigates her chair into Ruby's cubicle with half-hearted grace with great concern displayed in a frown above the aviators.

"What, no. I just, remembered yesterday." Ruby does not look away from the monitor as she replies, now deeply ashamed by her actions and equally impressed by the lack of similar weary apparent on the sharp face on the monitor.

"Ah, like PTSD flashbacks, I get you." Now Ruby hears the grin in Penny's voice, but she choose not to answer as the white-haired statue of endurance and grace on the monitor starts speaking.

"Would you like another cup, perhaps some sandwiches?" Ruby jolts at the voice by her left ear. Quickly wondering why a multi-billionaire offers her coffee and breakfast, Ruby turns to the side to see the brown-haired serving girl looking at her with a polite questioning look.

"Huh, yes, please. A pitcher, actually. And some sandwiches, thank you." Returning to her monitor as she orders what her body clearly needs, Ruby catches the finishing words of Weiss Schnee's greeting words and polite small-talk.

"The reason I have called this press conference is two-fold. First is an announcement regarding the stocks of SDC Holdings, and the other is to publicly reply to the rightfully sprung questions with origins in last week's report." A smile that does not even make a shadow on her cheeks, and Weiss continues to spread news that will fly across the world in seconds.

In about a half a minute, the quick tweeters will quote (mostly correctly) her words, another half-minute and the hot-shots relying on high risk will move values ranging million of dollars by just pressing a few buttons. Another minute, the news sites summarises the beginning of the the speech, adding to the (still baseless) planning of those not that quick on the uptake, another million in funds are transferred to accommodate the assumed results - calculated and waged upon by first computer and lastly by men and women.

Another 10 minutes, news sites have completed the first revision of their articles, small-timers and day-traders at home react.

Another 15 minutes, the press conference is over. Articles rewritten, statistics pasted into right columns and experts on TV inform those that missed it all what just happened. Hobby day-traders consider what to do with their savings, and then transfers a small sum to better fit the predictions by their computer along with guesses by people on TV and social media.

All in all, a speech that took less than half an hour resulted in about £250m transferred world-wide. That includes bonds in countries the SDC operates in along with countries they would never even consider. It ranges from stocks in electrical equipment manufacturing to manicure, passing a few fish farms and software developers as well. A multitude of securities changed ownerships, even a small dip in the euro was recorded.

Through it all, Ruby could only think of a single thing.

She had hit on the world's richest person under 30.

* * *

"Dad, what is it you do?"

"Untying your shoes, why?" With the trained stamina of a parent to small kids, the man replied easily to his youngest daughter's question. True to his word, he was untying knots he could have sworn took half the time tying than he now spent on them.

"No, I mean, otherwise." The five-year old girl reiterated while scratching her dirty cheek with an even dirtier finger.

"Well, I cook - a lot, to feed you two and mom. Then I sleep when I get time over..." Finally done with the first shoe, he smiles in satisfaction to his wittiness and skill.

"Daad, I mean work!" Flicking the shoe free from her foot, the girl does not take kindly to her father's explanations.

"Don't do that, and be still, Ruby." He glances through his dangling blonde tresses at the girl, who turns bashful and forces her legs not to move.

She remains silent throughout the work on the last shoe, and the father finishes untying in record time. Somewhat bothered by the sudden mood-shift, and possibly guilty for putting apprehension in a small girl's heart, the father carefully places the shoes on a rack (the bottom level) to dry.

"My work, huh?" He moves to unclasp the jacket and smiles at the eager nod he gets in return.

"Co...Coco says her parents make clothes, even the ones she wears." Coco? The father recognises the name of the young daughter of the family that moved in on the other side of the park not that long ago. He does not find himself surprised by the revelation of the parents working with design, as the poor child appeared to be the first to test their more avant garde-designs. The girl herself did not seem to mind, so he had simply listed the family as weird yet kind.

Digging through the thin layer of dirty crust covering most of the girl (not restricted to just the jacket or shoes), he finds the first button of the jacket and starts wiggling it loose.

"Well, I actually buy and sell parts of businesses, kinda like the one Coco's parents run." Three buttons undone, and he spots the still clean pastel shirt underneath. He thanks whatever deity kept her out of the pond this time around, and works his tongue around his teeth as he struggles to explain. The unsure frown sported by the daughter tells him he has to try harder.

"So, you buy and sell clothes? Or, just..." He shakes his head slowly and the child quietens. Last button done, and he navigates her arms out of it before placing it on the rug by the door for dusting later.

"Not really. Hmm... Think of it like this, you like cookies, right?" Another eager, yet mostly unsure nod makes him continue.

"So, what if you wanted to sell them? You open a bakery, get recipes and an oven, okay?" She looks at him intently, probably too focused on mapping out her own store or just getting hungry.

"But, to buy ingredients - flour, butter and so on - to make the cookies, you need money. So, what you do is to split your whole bakery in parts." The girl jolts at the pure awful suggestion of doing such a thing, but before she objects he continues.

"Not with a saw, but in papers. Say, you make a hundred notes, and you sell these notes to your family, friends and people at school." The child nods rapidly, taken by the idea.

"On each note, it says the one who owns it, can claim a piece of the money YOU make by selling cookies. That's a stock." The girl raises her hand, and he stops to let her voice the question.

"What does claim mean? Can you eat it, like clam?" The man shakes his head, and dusts the worst dirt of the child's trousers.

"It means ask for, if you have the note you are allowed to get money from the bakery." Seeing the next question forming just by his response, he continues before the hand shoots up.

"No, you can not get free cookies." Solemnly, the arm recedes and instead finds rest in the father's hand as he leads her in.

"So, in short, you have people buy notes that they then can use to get money back with. The thing here, is that if all goes well, you in the bakery do really well - can hire your sister..." Stopping his explanation, he looks over his shoulder through a window in the hallway facing the garden and beyond it, the park.

"Where is Yang, Ruby?" He spots her shrugging in his peripheral vision as she replies.

"She and Blake swinged, but I went home." Damn, knowing his oldest daughter she is hard at work trying to make record jumps from the swing and will need new pants later. He ponders discussing getting overalls with his wife later, but the insistent pulling of his hand returns him to the present.

"What about the cookies, dad?" He turn to face her and before moving on to the bathroom, smudges a spot on her cheek.

"So, you and Yang make lots of cookies, sell them all and then make even more, adults call that 'making a profit'. For each cookie sold, you can buy flour for two more, simply." It might be a little early to specify the concept of margins, returns and taxes, but if keep referencing cookies he know she'll listen.

For now he opens the door to the bathroom, as the young girl struggles with the new concepts revealed to her of the adult world, and she hums while in deep thought.

A few minutes later, daughter now out of her play-clothes and in the bath, ready to have all the dirt rinsed off, she reaches a conclusion.

"So you sell cookies?" As the words leave her mouth, their meanings hit her and she turns to face him with her well-trained deer-eyes.

"Not really, and you won't have any before dinner." He turns on the water, and targets his hand with the spray to adjust the heat. The quick retreat of her demands tells him she really did not believe he did, but hope dies slow.

"I buy and sell the notes the bakery made. I look for stores that might need some money to make more cookies, buy a few notes, and then keep them or sell them on." Pleased with the temperature, he lets it fall onto her head, making sure she shuts her eyes when the spray gets close.

"Of course, it's not just bakeries that make notes like that, and when they do, it's mostly more than a hundred." Out of reflex, the child rubs the back of her hands at her eyes while he lather some shampoo before working it into her dark locks.

She tries to speak, but water runs into her mouth and instead she coughs, but doesn't give up.

"You got many notes, for many stores?" She adds her own hands to the mess at her head, battling with his for massaging her scalp.

"Yes, many thousands, now close your eyes and keep them close." Moving the spray back to her head, he moves on with cleaning her up.

During his time in the bathroom, the oldest daughter had returned and with her (contrastingly charming) carefree ways deposited her dirty shoes by the stairs and jacket on the kitchen table.

After guiding her into the bathroom as well, he wondered where he had gone wrong in his disciplining as he without greater surprise noticed the holes in her new jeans.

* * *

Contrary to popular belief, it does not rain all the time in England.

Some days, like today, it's even hot and dry. For a girl dressed in all black, it was extremely hot. With arms resting against the metallic railing, the girl got a few curious glances from passer-byes.

Her low shoes were black, strings a lighter shade than the rest and patterned socks ran up to the billowing dress in black and details in red. With its base in a corset with intricate swirls and fastenings, the long skirt gave some respite and worked to gather the few winds that came her way. All who saw the girl resting against the railing sincerely doubted she felt as relaxed and calm as she appeared, none dressed in that much fabric ought to be.

She had tied her delicately wild-kept hair into a short pony-tail that flickered against her nape, and her bangs had a tint of red that came from careful and often applied work.

None who walked past the girl resting by London Bridge's railings could have guessed the girl had just two days ago received her certifications required to apply for a job she had worked for since first reading about economical trade. It had been almost a decade of constant studying, theses and applications to even reach the end of her preparations.

A scholarship had sent her across the globe, away from all she had called home and family. Yet, she had prevailed and even more - done it spectacularly.

So, at 21 Ruby Rose now stood and looked over River Thames as she waited. By her own estimations, she has been there for about half an hour. That is to say, half an hour **after** the time she was meant to leave it, along with the friend who had set that time and chosen the spot.

Knowing full well that she would not gain anything by getting mad, she forces herself to relax and breathe out.

It was yet another fifteen minutes until she had to get moving, regardless of her companion, so while she glanced at the tourist-boat that slowly glided underneath she worked hard to stay calm.

In the distance she saw The Towers, behind her lines of cabs, buses and ordinary cars made their way to their destinations. She had an inkling that her friend had chosen this spot just for the tourist-value of it. Sure enough, as she turned to look around her, she spotted one of the famous double-deckers far to her right.

It had taken her a few solid weeks to grow used to the fact that cars were on the wrong side, along with bikes and pedestrians. Luckily, she haven't had to navigate a car, but knew she could not postpone it for much longer. Not that the traffic was this bad back at Oxford, where she up till two days ago had her apartment and focal point of her new life. A shudder went through her at the thought of navigating the London mess, along with a feeling of regret and loss.

She had grown up in a small town in the American mid-west, a couple of thousand houses, one set of school and a small university she didn't even attend. The stark contrast with the almost medieval aura of Oxford had taken her breath away at first, but when those around her expressed such familiarity with the milieu she found herself well in time for her first classes.

Some would claim she came with several disadvantages: younger than her peers, on a scholarship and far away from home. To the pride of her teachers and family back home, she however did not let that keep her back. The pure pressure of being abroad was negated by her sister and father's almost religious contact. Being younger may have kept her out of certain establishments, but there were always other groups of people that had no interest in entering those even when being allowed. But, in such a performance-focused environment like Oxford, being a nobody with backing only of a scholarship in the face of generations of scholars and families of money, she never got past the meaning winks between people and even scoffs at worst.

That was also what she feared would face her in the years to come, and something she would live with until reaching heights where it simply would not matter.

With that in mind, having gained a friend from just the group who antagonised her the most would have shocked anyone but those who knew Ruby.

And as Ruby spotted the bobbing mess of ginger hair that was the most obvious physical trait of Penny Ironwood, she rolled her eyes with a growing smile.

* * *

Penny Ironwood, a to most unhealthily merry girl, came from a world of money. Her father's side admirals since days before steam engines, and her mother's wealthy land-owners from Ireland.

A graduate, like Ruby, from Oxford the two had met purely by chance during one of Penny's many visits to the city and institution and the two quickly found kinship.

Now dressed in an almost blinding display of green summer-dress and her red curly hair whipping along with her forceful strides, the two made a spectacular sight as they hurried down King William's street.

Leaving the cooling winds brought by the Thames behind them, they instead got the oppressive heat from sun and exhausts. For every step, they saw more glass-fronted buildings. Ruby stopped for a picture of the monument contrastingly placed between all the glass, with Penny eagerly patting her shoulder for haste.

"We can't dally, come on!" Ruby bit back the easy retort of reminding her of the reason for their tardiness, and instead made sure to adjust the ISO settings for her last shot.

"Splendid, and off we march." And march Penny did, Ruby had enough social ability not to follow her friend's ambitious gestures and acting, but did hurry to keep up.

Soon they arrived at an intersection that had Penny stop and ponder for a short moment.

"I always take the tube, so I'm not too sure..." She didn't finish her sentence as Ruby, expecting just this from her eccentric friend, held up her phone on which a most sensible route was displayed.

"Ah, thought as much - straight on we go." Ruby wasn't too sure she'd use her friend's words to describe their path, as that would have taken them through a building her device informed her to be House of Fraser.

Another few minutes of quick walking, or wild gesturing as most would describe Penny's re-enactment of a tourist guide, and the pair ended up at their last crossing.

Massive buildings in purely glass towered around them, and between every tower she could make out even more.

"There we are, I'll wait in Starbuck's, you knock them dead, all right?" With a flourish, Penny came to a stop and enveloped Ruby in a strong hug she could not return due to the massive outbreak of butterflies in her abdomen.

The lengths Penny had gone to help Ruby to this chance would be enough to fill books. She herself had a position earned, not bought, at the company Ruby now had to introduce herself to. The obstacles Penny had faced were more custom than practical reasons, even with Ruby's recommendations from all her tutors and councillors back at Oxford and an awe-inspiring resume of achievements, they just couldn't hire someone without a meeting.

So, that's why Ruby now gave a wavering smile at her friend who with another set of flourishes flashed a grin and two supportive thumbs up.

* * *

The door made a distinct click sound as her aide unlocked and opened it when she had just a few steps left to the car. Like clockwork, she slipped through the gap made by the reverse-opening door, and just as her heel made it past the threshold, the door shut firmly.

Weiss Schnee mused on the past half-hour, her speech and the many business points left to deal with ahead of made herself comfortable against the soft cushioning at her back, and strapped herself in as her aide entered on the passenger side just in front of her.

It had been a small joke, one of very few she had allowed herself, to have imported a German (left-seated) Rolls-Royce to her stable in England, its homeland. It had taken the main PR representative half an hour to get in touch with her office after it got revealed, offering to replace her vehicle with one "better fit her needs, and the environment". She had snorted when her aide had read the e-mail to her, and then let her decide upon a fitting negative reply.

Needless to say, they hadn't tried to get in touch again.

It might be a few years old, not top of the line anymore, but she sincerely doubted any new renditions would prove less harmful to the world's fragile state. She tapped her phone to wake up and felt the soft rumble of the engine work as her driver moved the vehicle into the mess of early London traffic.

A few notes synced from the different offices around the globe, and most reported less than stellar reception to her press conference.

And why wouldn't they? A share issue by a company listed among the top 50 on Fortune 500 for last 20 years consecutively should set of several red flags. To most, it signalled a need of raw capital to counter unexpected loss and to the rest just pure and unadulterated self-importance.

It had however not stopped the literal tsunami wave of interest for the openly available stocks, and except the still sleeping American branch all reported their region's major holders already going for their promised amount.

The car stopped and as she waited for her phone to sync the latest stock details, she looked out to her left.

For a capital, London had a surprisingly large percentage of its area dedicated to greenery, and just outside the window was one of several parks within just a short walk from where she were. Keeping her brain from relaxing, she worked out that this one was named Green Park, and that she had actually walked through it once. Tapping a manicured nail against the flashing status icon on her phone, she tried to remember how it had been, what it smelled and felt like.

A ping caught off her reminiscing, and she looked down at her phone again, matter archived for later review.

* * *

To one of her father's few good points, Weiss could list the fact he was not disappointed in having his first-born be a girl. It simply did not matter, as he had already structured a path for her to quickly replace him at the helm of SDC, a company he had run for decades with a velvet-clad iron-fist.

It had taken him two marriages, one heart-attack and several useless diets to finally see his replacement show up. Some found irony in the fact that a man with a MChD, and a whole army of employed physicists would cave under the effects of a weak heart. Weiss, however, only found it fitting as she had seen how the man had ploughed days and nights into the massive beast the SDC came to be under his rule.

So, when Reinhart Schnee quoted medical reasons to pass on the seat as Präsident to his daughter, she had sworn not to tread the same steps as him.

That was 4 years ago, when she had just turned 20. Last she had heard from him had been when she turned 22 and he officially signed over the family estates and grounds to her. With a few shaking lines, she had become one of the Europe's richest individuals, holder of acres of forests and houses she would never see or touch.

Her father's medical councillor, a man she had never met and only talked to over phone had called her few days ago to inform of her father's poor yet stable condition.

With her luck, she would probably have that man call her for the rest of her life, as her father simply did not seem any closer to his death than before his resignation.

The car regained momentum, softly and with the almost patented whirr she had grown accustomed to.

* * *

"And as I touched upon earlier, I will now move on to the sensitive topics we at SDC have and will work hard to improve. I will not claim to have known of the details of the records which surfaced last week, nor will I refute them as I have been informed of its legitimacy."

Here Weiss straightened her back, took another breath without letting her eyes go from the camera manned by her own media crew. Of course there were other agencies on place, but her crew had centre position and along with the captured audio from the sound equipment, the go-to-choice for all broadcasters for archive footage afterwards.

"It has been and forever will be, a key strategy of the SDC to enforce and uphold the laws and regulations in each region alongside our own policies regarding employment practises and administration. Those policies, I'd like to point out, do not only remain to be the single company-wide policy on this earth that fully encompasses the U.N Human Rights' articles but is also stricter than that."

Another breath, another meaning look at the camera to let the message sink in - they could google it, it's all true.

"That's why it's hard to hear about incidents like those retold in the reports, yet I will not excuse them. They are inexcusable and will face justice deemed fit by local law enforcement and afterwards by internal protocols."

A careful shrug, as to relax her shoulders and a move suggested by her media guru time upon time. It's not entirely her fault she appears rigid when talking, it's how she's been taught.

"So, unlike many of our competitors, I'd like to extend my well-meaning wishes to those behind the report. We at SDC do not cower. That will be all, have a good weekend."

And as expected, the crowd went wild. Questions were thrown at her back as she moved along with her security detail and aide through a secondary route to the car that waited outside the kitchen entrance at the hotel's backside. She heard her local PR representative bringing order to the chaos as the door closed and she made a mental note to send the old lady a fruit basket later.

* * *

"Fräulein..." Focusing away from her mental playback, Weiss looked at the soft face of her face leaning over her seat towards her.

Her aide, Velvet Scarlatina, had been with Weiss since she first got a position at SDC. Some would call it despotism that she got the job of RnD manager straight after graduating, but Weiss had proved those thinking so wrong well in time for her most recent promotion.

Velvet, in honour of the day clad in a strict and fashionable tinted suit along with a darker brown-red tie waved her massive phone to regain Weiss' attention. Her long brown hair kept in a bun with a set of needles with certain Asian style and lack of make-up made her appear quite more serious than Weiss knew her to be.

Stretching to take the device from the girl's hand, Weiss wondered how a thing like that even could be marketed as a phone, it barely fit her hand.

The size of the device did little to improve the mood-swing when she saw what Velvet clearly had meant to show her.

It was an image, a poorly shot one with awful lightning and ghosting from the owner moving while taking it.

But, it was still clear to Weiss what it showed.

"Verdammt."

It would not take CSI-level of computer power to help anyone see that it pictured a desperate Weiss trying to get a touchy young girl to not place her face in Weiss' bosom.

* * *

"Anyhow, I sent him that and haven't heard a thing since then." Penny flickered over her phone's screen, moving to the desired image to show Ruby just what she had scared of another suitor with the past weekend.

As Ruby waited for Penny to arrive at her finger's destination, she took another slow sip of the last dredges of her green shakey-thing. It tasted of mint and raspberries, and went well with the brownies she usually got at this shop where they were sat.

The pair, dressed like most who passed the store this early noon, were dressed smartly in tailored suits. Where Penny had chosen a pencil skirt to go with her tall leather boots, Ruby stuck to her pants with a pair of shiny dress shoes with enough heel to match Penny when walking.

Finally, Penny found her image, and flicked her phone off to Ruby along the small table. It just missed the plate Ruby's brownies had been served on. Picking it up, Ruby frowned at the image.

"It's your garage, right?" The lightning wasn't the best, so Ruby guessed a little too much to be comfortable as she tried to make out what in the image had caused this certain event. It was the fact she saw part of the hood of one of Ruby's cars to the right to gave away the location, as the focus of the image appeared to be a long freezer positioned along a wall.

"Yes, it is. I just wrote that it'd be there he would be if he visited. I wanted to have him know he could park indoors." Ah, Ruby did not doubt Penny had no ill intentions with her offer, but clearly it had not been received well.

"When you offer space next time, do not take a photo of the freezer. I know it's weird, but most prefer not to be placed in one." Ruby returned the phone to Penny, who frowned at her try at irony.

"I do not understand. The focus is a little off I know, but the meaning is clear, no?" Penny kept her frown as she tapped the phone to leave the image viewer.

Ruby did not answer, just shrug and hum something agreeing as she returned the straw to her mouth. Before she could catch it between her teeth, she remembered something she had meant to tell Penny earlier.

"Oh yeah, I heard from Coco that Ren married that artist he talked about." Penny looked at Ruby with a look of complete lack of understanding and desire for clarification.

"You know, Ren? From the Kong-office? He got married. We should send him a card or something." As Penny's look did not change, Ruby continued.

"We met him last spring, at the event in Moscow? Tall, mysterious, dry humour and funny accent?" Now Penny got a more understanding expression, but it quickly changed to concern.

"You, as an American, really shouldn't complain about accents. It's insensitive." So that's what she recognised in Ruby's explanation. For a short while, Ruby debated with herself whether to discuss the fact that American English is not an accent but decided not to. Instead, she focused to recalling details Penny be familiar with and came up with the man's HKEX trader ID.

"Oh, you meant him. Yes, we sho- wait a minute, who's Coco?" Tapping the straw against her cheek, she wondered about the reason for Penny's confusion. Could this really be the first time she mentioned Coco to Penny?

"It is, or rather was, my neighbour. She runs boutiques and what-not..." Ruby raked her brain trying to remember the name of the chain and the name the businesses were listed as.

"You don't mean Coco Adel, right?" Disbelief, an expression Ruby notice Penny was quite skilled at portraying, flared up across the table.

"Sure do. She, Yang, Blake and I grew up together. Never seen her without a pair of eye-wear since she was five." Ruby finished her shake as Penny's disbelief grew more potent, before slowly (and with clear regret) changing into acceptance.

"OK, for simply advancing the topic, let's say I believe you. Then, yes, we should get some flowers. And how is it you heard of this completed betrothal?" Penny picked up a stray tomato from her plate, and nibbled on it as Ruby shook her straw at her.

"Coco met the two at some party in HK, after her successful listing there. She called like two days ago, as she's heading here for a show." Placing the now empty plastic mug on the table, Ruby fought the insides of her jacket pocket for her wallet as she waited for Penny's reply.

It never came, and Ruby looked up from her jacket to Penny who appeared deep in thought. As Ruby counted coins to pay for her meal, Penny finally opened her mouth.

"That's not good at all."

* * *

Five days. Five days, of which two were weekend, have passed since Weiss had not only held a press conference - but more importantly, also seen an image of herself in a clearly unfathomably compromised position.

It had taken her staff three days to track down the one behind the photo, and with some careful wording and connections, gotten it taken off from the popular image sharing-site. It was now impossible to guess how many that might have seen the image, and out of those, recognised her.

Luckily, no one working for some god-awful 'news-site' had seen it (yet), so Weiss counted herself lucky for not going into self-imposed exile.

It simply would not do, for a Schnee - even less for the family head - to be in situations like this. Some prided themselves following the popular saying from different mediums: "It's only wrong if you get caught". The Schnee solution had been to keep a distance from anything that could incriminate the individual, and Weiss had followed it diligently since her earliest days.

Visiting friends after school? Not before the family had been checked for political and economical weaknesses that could be used against her later. Attendance reports dug up after her graduations? Impeccable. A speech she held as the student council's president? Checked by family solicitors and PR department.

So, as Weiss sat in the back of her Rolls Royce, Velvet and driver silent in front of her, her mind worked furiously on coming up with means to isolate, control and finally eradicate this incident. She had already set her PR representative to prepare a defence if something did come up, and several tactics to discredit anything that could not be dealt with discretely. It's a doubtful blessing that in this era of image manipulation, defences were not hard to prepare.

Looking away from her phone, where she had been reading a report from last week, she took in the views of one of many bridges spanning over the Thames to her right. It had been years since she walked along the river, and even then she had not been alone. Somewhat ironically, she thought to herself: "With great money comes great restrictions". Turning to her left, she notices the busy business-folk almost filling this part of the city with black suits and cases.

As the car waited at a crossing, she let her eyes move slowly over the faces of people either waiting to cross themselves, or as that red-head, walking-...

It can't be. She stumbles over her words as she tries to gain Velvet's attention but it's her wild flaring arms that the girl reacts to.

"Hm, was ist es?" Following the pointing finger of her mistress, Velvet notice the pair of young girls walking in front of their car, eagerly discussing something.

"Scheisse." Quicker than Weiss thought possible, Velvet tells the driver to park and then jumps out the car as it slowly turns onto the pavement on the other side of the road from the as the car comes to a stop, Velvet opens Weiss' door and helps her out with a strong grip. With her free hand signalling cars to stop as they cross the busy road, she guides Weiss to the correct side, not more than mere dozen metres behind the girls.

As Weiss hurries up to catch her nameless assailant from last week, she catches a few phrases about "FSA regulations" and "insider trading", but she does not bother to listen to the details as she throws out a hand to catch the red-head's arm.

and she made a mental note to send the old lady a fruit basket later.

* * *

 **July 4th, 2015**

It's Saturday, many hours remain for her sister to rise and celebrate her country's independence, yet Ruby Rose found herself in the office despite not even being called in.

For a weekend, too many shifts were on present, so conference rooms otherwise reserved for meetings had to be opened and used as extra offices. Luckily, Ruby had her desk to herself as she waggled an empty cup in her hand as she hummed to the calm voice originating from the other side of the planet.

"I heard there's some deal happening soon, but my office have just been restricted in sales. It's meaningless, but what can I do?" Lie Ren, a branch-head at the Asian offices of Ruby's company yawned into the receiver - too tired to even apologise afterwards.

"True. We're on a delay, so how much is it down now?" Ruby moved the cup to her lips for a sip, but for the third time in a row, found it empty.

"Since you last asked, four minutes ago... one and three points." Ruby heard the clacking of keyboards in the background, and even quieter the distressed shouting of Lie's co-workers.

"Should try and find somewhere to rest, have been up for two days now-..." Excited shouting replace the distressed calls, and Lie replies in kind as Ruby returns the cup to its coaster.

"Oh, Ruby, got to cut short. There's some conference starting. Take care." Before Ruby manages to wish Lie the same, the calls cut off and Ruby returns to her (albeit less) chaotic office.

It didn't come as a surprise that SSE, the third world's largest stock exchange would enter a slump. It's unavoidable, and happens to everyone. But, when that slump evens out to a dramatic decrease of worth for a month straight, there's ground for concern. With Greece stonewalling their lenders and holding a referendum, people were on edge to begin with.

That's why Ruby had come in to the office on the weekend. That's also why she had been on the phone with Lie Ren in Shanghai for the last half hour. With her specialisation being inter-European trade and safeties, she didn't belong to the dozen individuals who had yet to leave the office after a week, and as she placed the receiver back she rose to look at the set of monitors dedicated to news-shows at the middle of the room.

It being a direct stream from their Chinese offices, the content was without subtitles and dubbing, but the grim faces of the officials in suits and ties that looked into the camera spoke a language all traders knew.

Inspire calm, trust and interest in their products. With the customers now being millions of Chinese savers and as many laymen around the globe, it was a tough sale. Somewhere closer to the monitor-wall, someone did their best to translate and point out the important parts of the speech.

Ruby heard something about a sell-stop, a most definite proof that the government had lost all trust in the market's ability to correct itself.

Then she heard that a whole group of major safeties groups have promised to invest in a fund, a sign of lack of interest in the market.

Ruby managed to find the third part of the puzzle, to inspire calm, in the serious and careful movements of the officials.

The translator either got bored or simply knew there was no need to translate the rest as streams with subtitles now caught up with the original source. A flashing icon on the upper right corner of Ruby's screen alerted her of incoming messages, and she sat down and opened the office's internal chat room's window.

Someone from the American branch, probably working from home, had sent several funny images of a screenshot from the just aired Jurassic World-film, pointing out how desperate their measures were. Someone wrote in return something short about glass and the act of displacing stones in reach of said glass. Shortly thereafter, several users posted a link to what Ruby could make out a list, most likely that of the companies behind the fund. Another few comments about how those companies had to make a choice between pest, cholera or firing squad popped up as Ruby clicked the link.

Ruby's understanding of Chinese would easily be considered lacklustre, or to be harsh, non-existing, but she could make out company names among the several lines of symbols and graphs that surrounded each name. Quickly scrolling through the document, she spotted a few companies she herself had heard of, from indirect dealings but most were just mixes of consonants she found confusing.

Until she came upon a very familiar name, one she could even read and knew its origins.

Fall Investments. The single company she knew of in the list that had their roots outside the Chinese borders. She quickly searched for it online, noticing in the chat window that discussion had moved to that name as well, most appearing as surprised as Ruby felt. Just glancing at the first hit, she knew her worries were well-deserved, it was indeed the latest iteration of a certain Cinder Fall's many endeavours. Black-listed on almost all western trade markets, she had gone quiet well before Ruby got into the trade, yet she knew the stories. Insider-trading, bribing and outright scandalous practices had followed in Cinder's wake, so the shock that she still could trade was smaller than the fact she was still alive.

Closing her web browser, Ruby knew for certain that she would keep a close eye on China from here on.


End file.
